---
title: "Sign Pricing: How to Price Signs, With 2026 Benchmarks"
description: "How to price signs: the cost-plus formula, your shop rate, markup vs margin, and what 201 Sign Customiser stores charge for LED neon online."
url: "https://www.signcustomiser.com/posts/general/how-to-price-signs/"
last_updated: "2026-09-29"
---

To price a sign, mark up the materials and waste, charge the labour hours at a shop rate that covers your overhead and profit, and add bought-in parts with a handling markup. That total is your floor price. Compare it with what other shops charge and with what the sign is worth to the customer. Never sell below the floor.

The formula fits on one line. The numbers that go into it are the hard part. This guide adds real figures. Sign Customiser counted 94,264 LED neon signs that shoppers priced and added to cart on 201 US-dollar stores in the 12 months to 28 September 2026. The median price was $281 and the median sign was about 32 inches wide. Taken sign by sign, the median price per inch of width was about $9.30.

We make Sign Customiser, software that shows a shopper the price of a custom sign while they design it. The figures in this guide come from the stores that use it. The method works whether or not you use our software.

**On this page:**

- [What 201 online stores charge for LED neon](#what-201-online-stores-charge-for-led-neon)
- [The cost-plus formula, step by step](#the-cost-plus-formula-step-by-step)
- [How to work out your shop rate](#how-to-work-out-your-shop-rate)
- [Markup vs margin](#markup-vs-margin)
- [Five ways to price signs, compared](#five-ways-to-price-signs-compared)
- [Options, add-ons and minimum prices](#options-add-ons-and-minimum-prices)
- [When to publish prices and when to quote](#when-to-publish-prices-and-when-to-quote)
- [Keep your prices current](#keep-your-prices-current)
- [Pricing mistakes that cost sign shops money](#pricing-mistakes-that-cost-sign-shops-money)
- [How we counted](#how-we-counted)
- [Frequently asked questions](#frequently-asked-questions)

## What 201 online stores charge for LED neon

LED neon is the one sign type where Sign Customiser has enough stores to publish a price. Across 94,264 LED neon signs added to cart on 201 Sign Customiser stores that price in US dollars, between 29 September 2025 and 28 September 2026, the median price was $281. The middle half of prices ran from $197 to $446. The median sign was about 32 inches wide.

Price by size is where it gets useful.

Median LED neon price by width on US-dollar Sign Customiser stores, 29 September 2025 to 28 September 2026: $181 at about 18 inches, $225 at about 24 inches, $264 at about 30 inches, $387 at about 48 inches and $563 at about 60 inches. The dashed marker shows $450, twice the 24-inch median. Source: Sign Customiser.

Price does not grow in step with size. A 48-inch sign is twice as wide as a 24-inch sign, but it does not sell for twice the price. When Sign Customiser compared each store’s 48-inch median with the same store’s 24-inch median, the typical ratio was 1.86 times, across 110 stores. The middle half of stores sat between 1.62 and 2.14 times. At 72 inches, the typical ratio was 2.84 times, across 72 stores. Small signs carry fixed costs (the power supply, the packing, the time to take the order), so they cost more per inch. Taken sign by sign, the median price per inch falls from about $9.90 at 18 inches to $8.25 at 48 inches, then rises again to about $9.50 at 60 inches.

Stores split between two ways of pricing. Of 594 LED neon customisers on 406 Sign Customiser stores, 54.9% priced by the length of LED neon the design uses and 41.9% priced by letter, with price tiers by size. These are the two main pricing models Sign Customiser offers, so the split shows which one stores choose, not how the whole market prices.

Almost every store charges for options. Of the same 406 Sign Customiser stores selling LED neon in the 12 months to 28 September 2026, 95% charge extra for at least one option. The [options section](#options-add-ons-and-minimum-prices) has the detail.

Stores that price in euros show a similar pattern, in euros and not converted: a median of €262 across 71,510 signs on 85 stores, and €8.60 per inch. These are selling prices, not costs, so they tell you where the online market sits, not what your margin is. Your floor still comes from your own costs, which is where the rest of this guide starts.

## The cost-plus formula, step by step

Cost-plus pricing is the base of every other method in this guide. Even if you end up pricing by the square foot or by the letter, the rate you charge per square foot or per letter has to come from this calculation.

The formula:

> **Price = (materials + waste) × material markup + (labour hours × shop rate) + (bought-in costs × handling markup)**

The shop rate already includes your overhead and profit, so labour needs no extra markup. The markups on materials and bought-in costs are where the rest of your margin comes from.

### 1\. Cost and mark up the materials

Turn every roll, sheet or length you buy into a cost per unit you can measure on a job. A sheet that costs $65 and gives you 32 square feet costs about $2.03 per square foot. Include the shipping and tax you paid to get it into the shop.

Then add waste. Joe Arenella, writing in SignShop in January 2024, notes that even tightly nested acrylic jobs waste about 10% or more of the sheet. Offcuts you never sell, test cuts, misprints and weeding losses are real costs. Then apply your material markup to the total (the [markup section](#markup-vs-margin) has the ranges shops use). Ink and other consumables go in here too, costed per square foot of print.

### 2\. Charge the labour

Estimate hours for each stage separately: design, production, finishing and installation. Multiply each by your shop rate (the next section shows how to work it out). If a machine does most of the work, such as a router, laser or wide-format printer, some shops charge a separate machine-hour rate that covers the machine’s cost over its working life. Separate stages make your estimates better over time, because you can compare each one with the actual hours after the job.

Labour matters more in signs than in most manufacturing. In the US Census Bureau’s 2022 Economic Census, payroll was 28.4% of the value of everything US sign manufacturers shipped. Across all manufacturing, payroll was 11.5%. Materials, parts, supplies and energy were 41.0% of shipments for sign makers and 57.8% for manufacturing overall. A sign shop that gets its material markup right but underprices its hours still loses money.

### 3\. Add bought-in parts and subcontracted work

Many shops buy in part of the sign: channel letters from a trade fabricator, LED neon from a specialist maker, power supplies, permits or an installation crew. Add what you pay plus a markup for handling, ordering and the risk if the supplier gets it wrong.

Keep that markup honest. Bill Dundas, writing on pricing in Signs of the Times, warns that a customer who knows what the subcontractor charged will probably resent paying more than a 20% markup on it.

### 4\. Check the margin

Add the three lines and you have a price. Before you send it, check what the job earns: take away what the materials, bought-in parts and wages cost you, and divide what is left by the price. To set a material markup from a target margin, use this formula:

> **Price = cost ÷ (1 − target margin)**

Materials that cost $50, priced for a 50% margin, sell for $50 ÷ 0.5 = $100. The [markup vs margin](#markup-vs-margin) section explains why this is not the same as adding 50%. Do not apply a second margin to the whole job: the labour line already carries your profit through the shop rate, and adding margin on top of it prices you out of work you should win.

### A worked example

These are example numbers to show the method. Use your own costs.

A 24 × 36 inch printed aluminium composite panel is 6 square feet.

- **Materials:** panel at $4.00 a square foot is $24.00. Print and laminate at $1.50 a square foot is $9.00. Add 10% for waste: $36.30. At a 100% material markup, the materials line is **$72.60**.
- **Labour:** 30 minutes of design and 45 minutes of print, lamination and trimming is 1.25 hours. At a shop rate of $95 an hour, the labour line is **$118.75**.
- **Bought-in costs:** none on this job.
- **Price:** $72.60 + $118.75 = **$191.35**. Round it to $195 if you like.
- **Margin check:** if the hours cost you $30 each in wages, the direct cost is $36.30 + $37.50 = $73.80. The job earns ($191.35 − $73.80) ÷ $191.35, about 61%, before overhead.
- **Market check:** in the 2026 Signs of the Times survey, the most common price band for a much larger 4 × 8 foot panel was $500 to $549. A 6 square foot panel at $195 sits in a sensible place against that.

If the same customer wants it installed, quote the installation as its own line: crew hours at your install rate, travel, and any equipment hire. That keeps the panel price comparable from job to job.

### 5\. Check the result against the market

The number you have now is a floor, not a price. Compare it with what other shops charge for the same sign: published price sheets from competitors, prices on their websites, and trade survey figures such as the Signs of the Times survey below. For LED neon, the figures above are one reference. If your floor is above the market, find out which cost is out of line before you cut the price. If your floor is well below the market, you are probably underpricing. The first item in the [mistakes section](#pricing-mistakes-that-cost-sign-shops-money) explains why.

## How to work out your shop rate

Your shop rate is what one billable hour must earn to cover your running costs and your profit. Running costs split into two kinds. Fixed costs, such as rent, insurance, software and loan repayments, you pay whether or not a job is running. Variable costs, such as materials, change with each job and are charged on the materials line, not in the shop rate. The standard formula:

> **Shop rate = (yearly running costs, including wages + yearly profit target) ÷ billable hours a year**

A signs101 beginner’s guide to pricing works one through. A shop with $100,000 a year in expenses and a 40% profit target needs $140,000. Working 40 hours a week for 49 weeks gives 1,960 hours. $140,000 ÷ 1,960 = $71.43 an hour.

Check three things before you trust the number:

- **Count billable hours, not paid hours.** Quoting, admin, cleaning, machine maintenance and chasing payments take time that no customer pays for directly. If your team bills 30 hours of a 40-hour week, divide by the 30.
- **Put every fixed cost in.** Wages, rent, insurance, software, vehicle costs, loan repayments and the cost of replacing equipment when it wears out. Spread the price of each machine over the years you expect it to last, and add that yearly amount.
- **Wages are the floor, not the rate.** In the 2022 Economic Census, production workers in US sign manufacturing earned $24.24 an hour in wages alone. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts May 2025 median hourly wages, across all industries, at $30.38 for electricians, $30.27 for graphic designers, $25.84 for welders, cutters, solderers and brazers, and $21.47 for miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators. Your shop rate must cover those wages plus payroll costs, overhead and profit, so it will be several times higher. Bill Dundas, writing on pricing in Signs of the Times, puts labour at 200% to 250% above what you pay in wages: a shop rate of three to three and a half times the wage.

**What other shops charge.** SignCraft, which has sold a sign pricing guide since 2005, says in a February 2026 article on the guide that shop rates range from $75 an hour to over twice that. In the 2026 Signs of the Times survey of sign companies, 25% of shops that answered charge $75 to $99 an hour for design time and another 25% charge $100 to $124. Only 1 in 12 charge under $50. The survey is a self-selected group of readers and does not state how many answered, so treat it as a range, not an average.

Location matters too. SignCraft found that shops in metro and tourist areas were all in its highest price bracket, and that in almost every market some shops successfully charge more than others. Check prices in your own area before you settle on a rate.

If your calculated rate comes out well under $75, check your billable hours first. Joe Arenella writes in SignShop that he often hears of shops that charge a flat $50 an hour for everything without calculating it.

## Markup vs margin

Mix the two up and you take profit off every job.

- **Markup** is profit as a percentage of **cost**.
- **Margin** is profit as a percentage of the **selling price**.

Penn State Extension gives the standard example: a $5.00 item with a 30% markup sells for $6.50. The profit is $1.50, which is a 23% margin, not 30%. The University of Maine Cooperative Extension puts it another way: a 50% markup on cost is only a 33⅓% margin on the selling price.

Use this table to convert:

Markup on cost

Price of a $100 job

Gross margin

25%

$125

20.0%

50%

$150

33.3%

100% (double)

$200

50.0%

150%

$250

60.0%

200% (triple)

$300

66.7%

300%

$400

75.0%

The formula behind it: **margin = markup ÷ (1 + markup)**. To go the other way: **markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin)**.

Why it matters: if you want a 50% margin and you add 50% to cost, you get a 33% margin. On a job that costs $1,000, you planned to sell at $2,000 and make $1,000. Adding 50% sells it at $1,500 and makes $500.

**What markups shops use.** Trade sources agree on a range, not a number. Joe Arenella in SignShop says material markup is typically about 100% before waste. Bill Dundas in Signs of the Times puts most material markups at 50% to 100%. In the 2026 Signs of the Times survey, 35% of shops mark up materials on service calls by 50% to 99%, 27% by 25% to 49%, and 26% by 100% to 199%. A single markup for every material is a shortcut. It works only if you check that the jobs it prices still earn your target margin.

**What margin shops end up with.** In the same survey, the most common band of 2025 net profit was 10% to 20%, reported by 34% of shops that answered. 22% reported 5% to 10%, and 8% reported under 5%. Gross margin has to be much higher than those figures, because overhead comes out of it before net profit.

## Five ways to price signs, compared

Many shops mix methods. The right one depends on how standard the product is.

Method

How it works

Best for

Where it goes wrong

Cost-plus

Marked-up materials + labour at your shop rate + marked-up bought-in costs

Custom and one-off work, and setting the rates for every other method

Slow to quote by hand, and ignores what the market will pay

Per square foot

One rate per square foot for each material or product

Banners, printed panels, flat signs

Underprices small signs and overprices big ones unless you add a minimum

Per letter or per inch

A price per letter or per inch of letter height, often in size tiers

Channel letters, LED neon, flat-cut letters

Needs separate rates for each size range, font weight and lighting type

Price book or matrix

A table of set prices by size, material and options

Repeat products your staff quote every day

Goes out of date unless someone owns it

Value pricing

Price set by what the result is worth to the customer

Design-led work, brand signs, rush jobs

Hard to defend without a cost floor under it

**Per inch for channel letters.** Some shops quote channel letters per inch of letter height, at least as a starting point. In a 2025 signs101 thread on vertical-inch pricing, one shop said it charges $19 per inch for remote-mounted letters, $21 for raceway-mounted and $22 for reverse channel. Another gave past jobs at $15 and $22 per upright inch. These are single shops in one thread, not a survey, but they show the shape: one rate per inch, adjusted for how the letters are built and mounted.

**Per inch or per letter for LED neon.** Sign Customiser’s LED neon data shows the per-inch trap. Taken sign by sign, the median price per inch fell from about $9.90 at 18 inches to $8.25 at 48 inches. Between those sizes, a single per-inch rate would either overprice the bigger signs or underprice the smaller ones. Use size tiers, or a base price per sign plus a rate, so the fixed costs of a small sign sit in the base. Both Sign Customiser pricing models let a store add a base price for this.

**Value pricing sits on top of cost-plus.** Use cost-plus to find the floor. Use value to decide how far above the floor you go. The [first mistake below](#pricing-mistakes-that-cost-sign-shops-money) makes the case.

**Trade and wholesale pricing.** If other sign shops or agencies resell your work, give them a trade price below retail so they can add their own markup, and keep it on a separate price list. If you buy from trade-only makers yourself, their price is your bought-in cost, not your price.

## Options, add-ons and minimum prices

A base price rarely covers everything a customer can choose. Options are where many shops lose margin, because each one looks small on its own.

Share of 406 Sign Customiser stores selling LED neon that charge extra for each option, 29 September 2025 to 28 September 2026: any option 95%, outdoor or waterproof 57%, backboard priced by type 56%, dimmer or remote 30%, rush production 7%. Source: Sign Customiser.

**Outdoor use.** 57% of the 406 stores charge extra for an outdoor or waterproof version. Where the upcharge is a percentage, the median is +20%, and the middle half of customisers charge +10% to +25% (247 customisers on 137 stores). US-dollar stores that charge a fixed fee instead typically charge about $50 to $60. An outdoor sign needs a sealed build and a waterproof power supply, so if you do not charge for it, the indoor price is paying for it.

**Backboards and mounting.** 56% of stores price the backboard by type, so some backboard types cost more than others. Price the backboard by area if you can: a bigger sign needs a bigger board, and a flat fee that covers a small board loses money on a large one.

**Dimmers and remotes.** 30% of stores charge for a dimmer or remote. US-dollar stores that charge a fixed fee for it charge a median of $20. If a remote ships with every sign, its cost belongs in the base price instead.

**Rush production.** Only 7% of stores list a paid rush option. If you offer faster turnaround, put a price on it: a rush job moves other work, adds overtime and raises the risk of a remake.

These shares come from matching option names in several languages, so they are lower bounds: a store that calls its outdoor option something unusual is not counted. Some percentage upcharges apply to the letter price only, not the whole sign.

**Minimum prices.** Any per-square-foot, per-letter or per-inch rate underprices the smallest signs, because the fixed costs of a job (taking the order, setting up the machine, packing) do not shrink with the sign. Set a minimum price, or a base price per sign that every size pays. 1-800-The-Sign’s published price sheet, for example, sets a $40 minimum on banners. Sign Customiser’s LED neon data shows the same effect: taken sign by sign, the median price per inch is higher at 18 inches than at 24 to 48 inches.

**Design fees.** If a customer needs artwork created or rebuilt, charge for it at your design rate (the [shop rate section](#how-to-work-out-your-shop-rate) has what other shops charge). Most customer files are raster images: in Sign Customiser’s count of 17,076 artwork files attached to design and quote requests over 12 months, 90% were PNG or JPG. Our guide to [sign production file formats](/posts/general/sign-production-file-formats/) covers what to ask for, and our guide to [handling low-resolution and AI-generated artwork](/posts/general/sign-shop-artwork-policy/) covers what to charge when the file needs work.

**Deposits, proofs and tax.** Take a deposit before you start custom work, so a cancelled order does not leave you holding a sign nobody else can use. Say how many proofs and revisions the price includes and what extra rounds cost. Quote sales tax or VAT as its own line, so the customer compares like with like.

## When to publish prices and when to quote

More buyers prefer to buy without talking to a salesperson. Gartner reported in March 2026 that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a buying experience without a sales rep, up from 61% a year earlier (646 buyers surveyed in August and September 2025). Those are buyers in all industries, not sign buyers, but the trend runs one way: more buyers want to see a price before they talk to anyone.

That does not mean every sign should have a price on the website. The line is how well you can know the cost before you see the job:

**Publish a price** for signs you make to a fixed specification: LED neon, flat-cut letters, printed panels, banners, stencils. The cost is predictable, so a formula can price it correctly every time. This is the work a [live sign pricing tool](/sign-pricing-software/) handles well.

**Quote by hand** for installed, illuminated or structural work: channel letters on a building, pylons, monuments, anything that needs power run to it. Marc Crane of FSG Signs, quoted in SignShop, recommends gathering site survey photos, permit research and subcontractor quotes before you quote, and getting written approval of the scope and every change order. Two storefronts that look the same from the street can cost very different amounts once you see the wall, the access and the electrics.

**Use a “from” price** for the middle ground: show a starting price for the sign itself and quote the installation separately. The customer gets a real number early, and you keep control of the part you cannot price without a visit.

If you sell online, the price rules have to be written down somewhere a computer can run them. Sign Customiser, for example, prices LED neon and letter signs either by the length of material in the design (“Advanced Letter”) or by per-letter size tiers (“Simple Letter”), and adds the price of each option the shopper picks. Our [sign pricing models guide](/posts/shopify/sign-pricing-models-explained/) compares the models with worked examples, and the [sign pricing calculator](/resources/sign-cost-calculator/) checks the margin on a single sign. For job tracking and quotes on installed work, our comparison of [sign estimating software](/posts/general/best-sign-estimating-software/) covers the tools shops use.

## Keep your prices current

A price list is correct on the day you write it. After that, costs move.

The US producer price index for sign manufacturing rose from 184.9 in August 2019 to 262.6 in August 2026, up 42%. The largest one-year rise came between August 2021 (194.2) and August 2022 (225.7): 16.2%. The year to August 2026 was almost flat, up 0.25%. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics via FRED; the August 2026 value is preliminary.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks the prices US sign manufacturers get for what they make. It measures selling prices, not costs, but it shows how far the market has moved. That index rose 42% from August 2019 to August 2026. The largest one-year rise was 16.2%, between August 2021 and August 2022. Since then it has slowed, and the year to August 2026 was up only 0.25%.

What that means for your price list:

- **If your prices date from before 2022, check every line.** Sign prices moved a long way that year, and a list written before it is likely to be well under what other makers now charge.
- **Review your costs once a year**, and after any large supplier increase. Re-run the cost-plus sum on your five most-sold products and compare the result with your list.
- **Change prices in one step.** If costs have risen across the board, a single percentage increase on the whole list is quicker and more consistent than editing each line. In Sign Customiser, [Adjust all prices](/help/get-started/15913361-quickly-adjust-all-prices/) applies one percentage to every price in a customiser, including sizes, fonts, materials, extras and mountings.

## Pricing mistakes that cost sign shops money

**Treating cost-plus as the price.** This is the strongest argument against the method in this guide, and it is a fair one. Cost-plus gives you the least you can charge, not the most. A study by Michael Marn and Robert Rosiello in Harvard Business Review (1992), across 2,463 companies, found that a 1% improvement in price raised operating profit by 11.1% on average, if volume held. The same improvement in variable cost raised it by 7.8%, and in volume by 3.3%. The numbers are old and come from large companies, but the point holds for a sign shop: small price gains are worth more than small cost savings. Price from your costs, then charge what your design and service are worth.

**Competing with online sellers on commodity signs.** In an early-2026 signs101 thread about racing to the bottom on price, a member pointed to an online seller offering 100 single-sided yard signs at $2.37 each, with stakes extra. The members’ advice was to compete on design, installation and service instead of price. In the 2026 Signs of the Times survey, 19% of shops named price competition from other sign companies as a top threat, and 20% named competition from non-sign companies. If a sign ships in a box and a customer can buy it online, your price has to include something the online seller cannot give.

**One flat rate for every kind of hour.** Design, CNC time, installation at height and electrical work do not cost the same. An installer working from a lift needs the lift hire in the price; electrical work needs a licensed electrician’s time. A single rate either overprices the simple work or underprices the skilled work, so set a rate for each kind of hour and price installs from the crew rate, travel and equipment hire.

**Letting AI set the price.** In a 2026 signs101 thread on asking AI for pricing advice, members said AI can do the arithmetic if you give it your full costs, but it cannot see the working height, the travel or the site conditions. Use it to check your maths, not to set your prices.

**Forgetting the price you did not charge for.** Revisions, extra proofs, site visits, rush and outdoor builds are all work. If they are not on the price list, you do them for free. Write down what the base price includes (for example, one proof and one round of changes) and put a price on everything after it.

If you want customers to see a price while they design their sign, [Sign Customiser’s plans](/pricing/) start at $29 a month, every plan includes every feature, and there is a 7-day free trial.

## How we counted

- **Source:** Sign Customiser production data, read on 29 September 2026 with read-only, aggregate-only queries. No store is named and no figure describes a single store.
- **Period:** 29 September 2025 to 28 September 2026.
- **What was counted:** LED neon signs that shoppers designed and added to cart on Sign Customiser stores. The price is the full selling price the shopper saw, including the options they chose and any discount, and excluding shipping and tax. It is a quote, not always a completed order.
- **Stores:** 201 stores whose base currency is US dollars for the US-dollar figures, and 85 euro stores for the euro figures. We did not convert currencies. 406 stores in all currencies for the option and pricing-model figures.
- **Excluded:** test and development stores, stores owned by Sign Customiser staff, and our demo store.
- **Checks:** every published figure covers at least 50 records and 20 stores, and no single store makes up more than 30% of any figure. We counted the headline a second way: taking each store’s own median first, then the median across stores, gives $291 against the overall $281. A check against completed orders landed within about 7% of the add-to-cart median. We do not publish the order figures, because one store makes up too large a share of them.
- **Limits:** the price and option figures cover LED neon only. Other sign types (channel letters, lightboxes, metal, wood) did not have enough stores to publish without one store dominating the result. A shopper can add several versions of the same sign to cart, so busy stores count more; the store-by-store median corrects for that. Option shares come from matching option names and are lower bounds.

The public figures come from the US Census Bureau’s 2022 Economic Census (NAICS 339950, sign manufacturing), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2025 occupational wage estimates, and the sign manufacturing producer price index via FRED), Penn State Extension, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, SignCraft, Signs of the Times, SignShop, Gartner, Harvard Business Review and signs101.com. Figures were checked on 29 September 2026.

## Frequently asked questions

### How do you price a custom sign?

Mark up the cost of materials and waste, charge the labour hours at a shop rate that already covers your overhead and profit, and add bought-in parts with a handling markup. That total is your floor. Then compare it with what similar shops charge and with what the sign is worth to the customer, and set the price at or above the floor.

### What is a good markup for signs?

Trade sources put material markups at about 50% to 100% of cost. Markup is not the same as margin: a 100% markup gives a 50% gross margin. Check what margin your markup gives on real jobs, not only what the rule of thumb says.

### How much should a sign shop charge per hour?

Divide your yearly running costs, including wages, plus your profit target by the hours you can bill. SignCraft, in a February 2026 article on its pricing guide, says shop rates range from $75 an hour to over twice that. In the 2026 Signs of the Times survey, half of the shops that answered charge between $75 and $124 an hour for design time.

### What is the difference between markup and margin?

Markup is profit as a percentage of cost. Margin is profit as a percentage of the selling price. A sign that costs $100 and sells for $200 has a 100% markup and a 50% margin. Margin equals markup divided by one plus markup.

### How much do LED neon signs sell for online?

Across 94,264 LED neon signs added to cart on 201 US-dollar Sign Customiser stores between 29 September 2025 and 28 September 2026, the median price was $281 at a median width of about 32 inches. The median was $225 at about 24 inches and $387 at about 48 inches.

### Should I put sign prices on my website?

Publish prices for signs you can make to a set specification, such as LED neon, flat-cut letters and printed panels. Quote by hand for work that needs a site survey, permits or electrical installation, because you cannot know the cost until you have seen the site.

### How often should I update my sign prices?

Check your costs at least once a year and after any big supplier price change. The US producer price index for sign manufacturing rose 42% from August 2019 to August 2026, so a price list that has not changed since 2019 is well behind the market.

## Sitemap

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